My look back at the year in film continues. A newfangled idea was to write a bit about the details, those little specificities that defined the year for me. I’m trying to find a way to display some of the random things that stood out for me and to summarize what I’ll be taking from this year. There will be other lists coming up with which to do that, but I figure this was worth giving a try. Obviously this is just a sampling. Otherwise it would’ve turned into everything I liked and didn’t like about every film I liked and didn’t like. There’s plenty of room in the other lists for everything to get its due recognition.

— Discovering the music of Rodriguez via Searching for Sugar Man

— Liking the big blockbusters that so many others ripped to shreds (Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises, by far my favorite of the trilogy)

— The hand-to-hand combat scenes in The Raid: Redemption

— Amour causing fits of hyperventilation

— Seeing Don Hertzfeldt at the Coolidge Corner screening of It’s Such a Beautiful Day

— The painstaking process of the artist in documentaries (Gerhard Richter Painting, Beauty is Embarassing, Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Shut Up and Play the Hits, Indie Game: The Movie, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry and heartbreakingly in This is Not a Film)

— The first Quentin Tarantino film I didn’t love (Django Unchained)

— Directors feeling the need to distract and/or partially ruin their films with their own presence. I’m looking at you Tarantino and Maiwenn. To the latter; the centralization of your character kept Polisse from being one of my favorites this year.

— The rare thrill of having no idea what will happen next and the absurdist surreal invention that makes up Holy Motors

— The jaw-dropping narrative of The Imposter and getting to experience it with a sold-out audience in a state of collective disbelief at IFFBoston

— Take This Waltz and resulting life decisions

— A gay animated character (Paranorman)

— Beasts of the Southern Wild and Silver Linings Playbook leaving me adrift and still conflicted with my thoughts (The former was beautiful and lyrical but also kind of uncomfortable us vs. them poverty porn where the latter was thoroughly entertaining but can’t get away with depicting love as a cure-all for mental illness and having its characters make crucial decisions I don’t buy)

— Docs How to Survive a Plague and The Invisible War shaking, horrifying and moving me to my core

— The smorgasbord of Les Miserables (Great songs, distracting Dutch angles and incessant close-ups, me crying at parts but also hating a lot of the final half because Marius/Eponine/Cosette are the worst. My most erratic theatrical experience this year)

— Having the main character in Michael, a pedophile, remind me of Buster Bluth and distracting me for its entire runtime

— The continued mourning of not having gone to LCD Soundsystem’s last show (Shut Up and Play the Hits)

— Francois Cluzet and Omar Sy have better chemistry than you and anyone you know (The Intouchables)

— The pristine detail of the off-kilter black-and-white design of Frankenweenie’s world

— The first prison visit scene in The Paperboy showing me something I’ve never seen before

— Merida’s life-of-its-own red mane (Brave)

— Being reminded that boredom is worse than car-crash bad (Numerous offenders)

— Bringing the moors to muddy naturalistic life (Wuthering Heights)

— Falling for the first half of Wuthering Heights like a lifelong soul mate only to loath the final hour

— Seann William Scott? Giving a good performance? Surely you jest (Goon)